Death Watch
by Sobekneferu
Summary: A Flesh Tearer turns traitor...or is it all for love of his Blood Angel brother? Contains YAOI - don't like, don't read. Rated M to be safe for mature situations.


**1. Death Watch contains YAOI - Space Marines acting in a more-than-brotherly fashion toward each other. If you don't like it, please don't read it, and please don't flame me! All constructive reviews appreciated, though. :-)**

**2. I ABSOLUTELY do not own anything by Games Workshop - 40k, Space Marines, etc are all owned by GW and I'm just borrowing them for a little fun. **

**Death Watch**

We stood, at last, face to face. The space hulk moaned and whispered around us just on the edge of even our super-human hearing; the ghostly torment of ancient metal and Emp…gods only knew what else still singing the same ghastly song after all these centuries.

Imriel balanced easily on the gently swaying deck. His armor was a thing of glory in ivory, scarlet, and gold; the only concession to the Deathwatch was the black paint on one pauldron covering his former company designation and the ominous silver I of the Inquisition proclaiming his new and temporary allegiance. The lenses in his helmet glowed a pure and damning green, and the hand holding the ornate infernus pistol at my head was steady.

I moved my hands – ever so slowly – up to the seals on my own tar-black helmet, and when he did not shoot me immediately I unfastened them and pulled it off. The uncertain gravity in the space hulk caused my long ebony hair to drift in the stale air. When I dropped my helmet to the deck Imriel flinched, just the tiniest bit, but the barrel of the compact melta-pistol never wavered from my face.

"I've missed you, Imriel," I said, and I felt a quiet pride that my voice remained as steady as his gun. "Am I to die without seeing your" – _beloved,_ I thought, _your beloved_ – "face?"

We stood in silence for a moment, and then he unsealed his helmet one-handed and clipped it to his belt with the surety of habit. His pale skin was drawn against his noble cheekbones, and there were new shadows under his eyes that complemented his dark fine hair. His eyes flicked in approved combat fashion around the corridor in which we stood, across the ceiling, to my empty hands. They clung ever so briefly to the crimson crosses slashing across both of my own pauldrons, and the sorrow and confusion in his drowning green eyes was enough to disrupt the syncopation of my hearts for a full five seconds.

"Lucien," he finally said. His voice, usually ringing clear like the noblest of bells, came out as a harsh whisper. He coughed, and spat on the deck – well away from my feet, I noted, where the slick wetness began to sizzle and eat through the weak alloys of the ancient ship. "Lucien," he said, more clearly. "Lucien, why?"

"Better a traitor's death than a lapdog's life, they say in the Corsairs," I replied. In my head it was jaunty and insouciant, but it came out sounding the way I felt – dark, flat, and miserable.

"Better to reign in hell, Lucien? You know better than that," he admonished me.

"Purity is a good mask for corruption, Imriel. The goal should not be to protect ourselves from suffering, but to be strong enough to bear it."

"Lucien!" The anguish on Imriel's face was unbearably exposed, and this time it was I who flinched. "Lucien," he whispered. "I _cannot_ bear it." He holstered his infernus pistol, and held out his gauntleted hands to me. "Why, my brother?"

I let the anger and betrayal I felt twist my own expression. The rage that always simmered in my blood these days spiked, and I spat on the deck to start another chemical burn on the deck next to his. Blood rose behind my eyes, and the beating of wings. I let my suit pour chemicals into my badly compromised system and tried to do nothing but inhale. Exhale. Inhale again. When I had mastered my breathing, I bent and picked up my helmet and hooked it to my belt. I began to unfasten my gauntlets, using the complicated buckles and seals as an excuse to look away from his pleading eyes, his sinful lips, his high cheekbones.

"What do you love most of all in the galaxy, Imriel," I asked. "And be truthful, please."

I knew the shape his lips would take without looking. A wry curve, accompanied by one fine eyebrow winging upward.

"What, you a traitor, and yet you will brook no falsehoods between us?"

"Even now, Imriel. Even now I am no traitor to you. Why would you make me one?"

He spat again, a larger blob of acid that sparked and smoked as encountered the exposed wiring on his right. "Then, although the Inquisition would rather the opposite order, it is surely Blessed Sanguinius, and then the Emperor on His throne. _Why, Lucien?_"

I stood in silence and tucked my gauntlets into my empty helmet. The cold of the barely breathable atmosphere in the space hulk nipped at my fingertips and I crossed the small space between us before they could chill completely. Startled, Imriel froze in place as I put my hands on either side of his face. "Because, Imriel. Chapter Master Seth sent me to the Deathwatch as a barbed gift – only his best for the Deathwatch – his best killer. No, let's have nothing but honesty between us. His best _murderer_. A beast barely caged, one step away from the Death Company anyway. "Let them see what the Flesh Tearers are made of," he said, and sent me away.

"I expected to die within the month, Imriel. I hated my own chapter, for sending me to die far from the rites of the Reclusiarchs. I hated _you_, Sanguinary Priest, for being the paragon that you are. Perfect scion of Blessed Sanguinius. Noble, pure."

The rage threatened to choke me again, and I increased the dosage my suit was dripping into my veins. "And somehow you didn't hate me back. You called me brother, forced me to stay in your quarters so I wouldn't isolate myself. Badgered the Commander into remanding me into your custody, into making me part of your squad when Battle Brother Balthasar died. Hustled me out of sight whenever the rage threatened to take me. Sparred with me and lost graciously every time. And I…" I could hardly speak, and whirled away from him to pound a fist against the flaking rust of the wall. "How could I help but love you for it? Love you more, even, than Blessed Sanguinius."

I heard the clink and rustle of ceramite and gold, and Imriel came up behind me. He waved aside my hair and put one hand on my bare neck. The shock I felt at his touch had nothing to do with the cold of his flesh, and my fangs pierced my tongue and drew bitter blood as I fought to keep my moan behind my lips.

"Lucien, you're burning up with fever." His voice was stricken, and I could not help but take a twisted pleasure in his concern.

I spun around, my back flat against the bulkhead, and unbalanced him enough that his arms went out to touch the wall on either side of my head to steady himself. I put my hands on his face once more, unashamedly caressing his cheeks that flamed under my touch.

"Imriel. I'm not feverish. I'm dying."

"What? No. Lucien. Please." He might as well have been a statue under my touch, but at least he didn't pull away. His skin was softer than silk, brighter than the cold stars that burned uncaringly outside the ancient vessel in which we lingered.

I swallowed the blood in my mouth, and fought the red haze it brought on. "I'm dying, and you know it. I couldn't fight the curse forever. I meant to leave no trace…but, like the fool I am, I couldn't bear to die without seeing you one last time."

"Then this…?" he gestured to the saltaires painted on my pauldrons.

"Oh, I've joined the Red Corsairs all right. May they have much joy of me." I didn't bother to disguise the gloating bitterness that laced my voice now.

"Lucien!" Imriel shouted. "I don't understand!"

But I saw by his face that he did understand. "_Yet this inconstancy is such/As you too shall adore;/I could not love thee, Dear, so much,/Loved I not Honour more._" I quoted the Old Earth poet softly. "With the love I bear you, Imriel, how could I shame you, shame our bloodline, with my insanity?"

"So you thought it better to turn traitor?" The hatred in his voice lashed at me, and when he would turn away in willful ignorance I gripped his head more tightly and drew it close to mine. His breath seemed chill compared to the heat of my body.

"Is this the uniform of a traitor?" I whispered. His eyes flicked again to my shoulder pauldrons, and I nodded.

"No," he whispered back. "Lucien, come…"

I kissed him. I couldn't bear to hear him say "come back," to say he could save me because I knew it wasn't true. Knew it like I knew how to strike with a chainsword, knew it like I knew the color of my blood, the beats of my hearts, and the beloved, precious curves of his cheeks and the satin night of his hair. I kissed him with death beating its wings in my ears and I kissed him because I wanted to, had always wanted to, could not bear to die without having even once tasted his lips.

He tasted like cinnamon and the gall of his spit. I closed my eyes so that I wouldn't have to see the hatred and revulsion in his, and kissed him desperately while my body burned and I waited for him to thrust me away.

He kissed me back. Gentle motions of his lips against mine, like the invocation of a secret prayer, and then his hands were tangled in my hair and I pulled him as close to me as our armor permitted.

For long minutes we savored each other's mouths, and then I swayed back, just slightly. Even with my enhanced system I was short of breath, and I ached for him to understand like I ached for him to touch me all over my cursed body. "Imriel," I groaned. "Imriel, it had to look real. _Everyone_ had to believe I'd defected. Because I will be sworn in at a grand ceremony aboard the Blackheart's flagship along with over a hundred other traitors. And then I can finally give in, I can finally stop fighting, and I can make our chapter proud. How many do you think I'll take with me, before they take me down?" My eyes were still closed, but they flew open when his fingers skated across my cheeks and eyebrows.

"Oh Lucien," he whispered, and the agony in his expression was almost enough to turn me traitor in truth. How could I bear to live in a galaxy where I was the cause of such agony to such a Space Marine as Imriel? How could that be right, or fair?

"Imriel." I freed one hand, and hit the emergency release on my power armor, then did the same to his. Our hauberks fell to the creaking deck, and I pulled him into a closer embrace. I could feel the hard plastic of his carapace beneath his silken skin, and I let my burning heat enfold him. "Imriel," I whispered in his ear. "I wanted to fool even you, but in the end I couldn't go through with it. But you can't tell _anyone._ Not Commander Attica, not the Apothecary, no one. Not until you get word of my death. Because if I have to die, if I have to leave you, it _has_ to be worth it. It has to be enough to redeem my honor."

Imriel tangled his hands in my hair once more and pressed against me fervently. "I doubted you, Lucien. To my shame, I doubted you. How can you forgive me? How can you love me, knowing that?"

I ran my fingers across his back, and reveled in the brief abatement of the storm of rage within me. Never mind the other storms that wracked me; in his arms I was safe for a time. "My love is not so inconstant as that, Imriel. I will love you until I die, and I will wait for you beside the right hand of Blessed Sanguinius until you rejoin me at last. Just please..." I couldn't speak for a moment. "Please, Imriel." I couldn't continue. I couldn't beg him to love me as I loved him. My pride was too much for that, at the last.

Imriel, my beautiful, noble Imriel, brought his head up to level with mine. "Lucien. Lucien, it's _you_ I love more than anything. More than the Emperor who fought to save us all from Chaos, more than our Primarch of blessed memory who died in defense of that dream. My bold, brave Lucien; you must believe me. How could I not love you, brooding and strong, wild and tender? I loved you from the moment I saw you; knew I had to have you by my side at all costs. Both my hearts are breaking to let you go. How can I bear it? How?"

There was a wildness in his eyes and voice that struck me to my core, and I answered him the only way I knew how, with tongue and lips and hands. With the anguished hope that my own curse would not bring him down with me. With all the love I bore him, with all the madness in my soul.

At last our ardor spent itself, and though my passion had not abated it at least cooled enough for me to brush his drifting hair from his face and kiss him more chastely. In silence we re-armored ourselves, although I could not yet bear to don my helmet, to cut myself off from the naked sight and scent of him.

He did not don his either, but instead handed me his power sword and infernus pistol. My puzzlement must have shown on my face, for he smiled briefly.

"How else to explain our meeting? You hunted down your mentor, tried to turn him, and when he wouldn't you killed him and took his fine weapons for your dark purposes."

I nodded. "And you; you hunted down your traitorous brother; well-known for his prowess in battle. He bested you, and you barely escaped with your life, being forced to leave behind your weapons in his possession."

"I know you love your chainsword, but with these…" Imriel choked up, and spat acid again to cover his anguish. "With these I imagine you should take down at least twenty of the arch-enemy before you fall. Perhaps as many as thirty, should your surprise be complete. They will be unused to handling a close-combatant of your caliber."

I holstered his weapons, and carefully pried a small charm in the shape of a sawblade bearing a blood drop from my vambrace. It was already coated in black paint, but along the edge the inscription was still clear – "_Faith, not Heresy."_ I handed it to him, and he tucked it reverently into a belt pouch. "Imriel…"

"I'll tell them, Lucien. Once word of your valiant deeds comes to my ears, they will know how a Flesh Tearer does his duty to the Emperor and the Deathwatch. They will all know the name of Brother Lucien, bravest and most honorable of the Scions of Sanguinius."

"It will be your name on my lips as my battle cry," I swore. "Yours, and only yours. Now go. Go before I cannot bear to let you."

Imriel instead stepped closer, and kissed me once more. "I love you, Lucien. My brother, my lover, my one and only."

I gripped his forearms and kissed him like the world was ending. Then I walked away, back to my waiting shuttle, back to the death that awaited me, back to the rage that even now was rising, rising, rising like the blood behind my eyes.

_+++Imperial transmission to Deathwatch Station 42-Beta, encryption Aleph-Starlight, attention: High Sanguinary Priest Imriel_

_+++Chaos transmission intercepted, sector 753-X, last known location of the Astral Claws and their traitor Chapter Master known as the Blackheart. During a ceremony of unknown purpose, mayhem erupted on the flagship causing Huron Blackheart to flee. Mayday transmission from heretic crew of flagship spoke of a red-eyed madman slaughtering crew and Corsairs alike. Estimated over 45 dead at time of transmission, broadcast ended abruptly in screams and static. Huron Blackheart presumed living, casualties aboard flagship unknown at this time._

_+++End transmission. The only death is death in service of the Emperor, the only damnation to fall from His grace._


End file.
